


Ghost

by anotherfngrl



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parent Martin Whitly, Gen, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Martin Whitly Being an Asshole, Serial Killers, What-If, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherfngrl/pseuds/anotherfngrl
Summary: Gil didn't believe ten year old Malcolm about his father planning to kill him.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly
Kudos: 24
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2021





	Ghost

He'll regret not taking the kid seriously for the rest of his life. Of course, that's only a few minutes, in the traditional sense. But during everything that comes next... he regrets not believing Malcolm after he's dead, too.

  
The little boy's life changes that day, and not for the better. The Surgeon may have dealt with the inquisitive police officer, but he wasn't about to let something like that happen again.

That was the day Malcolm's training began.

Martin had forced him to look at Gil's dead body. "Are you happy, son? You did this. You," the Surgeon told his son. "You brought him here to die."

Malcolm cried, even before Martin put him to work. And work he did- Martin made sure Malcolm Whitly would never call the police on his father again. He made him an accomplice.

Gil could only watch in horror, there but not truly present, as the little boy and his father loaded his body up and disposed of it. And he mourned- for the possibilities of his life, for the family he and Jackie had longed to have. For his wife, who will never know what happened to him. And for the horrified little boy who called the police looking for help. Who tried to warn him.

Maybe that's why his spirit stays with Malcolm, instead of with his body. Because he feels a responsibility to this boy, who asked him for help. Who he can't save, now.

So he watches, as The Surgeon brings home new victims. As forcing his son to help dispose of their bodies becomes making him watch their torture.

He's wished, desperately, futilely, that there was something he could do to stop it all. But it's not until Martin declares it time for Malcolm's first kill that everything changes.

The boy- and he is still a boy, a gangly pre-teen with acne and a voice that cracks when he begs his father not to make him do this- retreats to the bathroom, saying he just needs a moment. And Gil wants _so desperately_ to comfort him, to save him from this, that he somehow becomes real, just for a moment.

"You're a better man than Martin Whitly ever was," he says to the terrified face staring back at him in the mirror. "You don't have to do this."

His grip on the corporeal world is slim, and it slips through his fingers. He can only pray it's enough.

This time, when Malcolm Whitly calls the police to tell them there's a body in his home, they come, and they believe him. They find Martin Whitly lying in a pool of blood, dead by the knife he'd wielded so many times, a terrified woman tied up in the corner. His son covered in the streaky red remains of the hardest choice he's ever had to make twice.

The choice to stand up for what's right, in spite of his father.


End file.
